I hate being stuck at $230k HHI and feel poor AF

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has got to be a troll. No kids and 230 HHI is plenty! Do you have tons of student debt?

Yes, we make about $260 and I was with you until I read you have no kids. DH and I would be RICH with no kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I make 150k and my spouse around 75k. After yearly bonuses, we pull in about 230k. It sucks. I constantly, constantly feel like we still have to watch our spending and can never relax and spend without worrying. Every time the car or house needs to be fixed, I cringe. Every time I go to the grocery store, I cringe spending $120.

We do not have an insane mortgage. We took out $540k, which is only 2.4x our income....not absurd. A lot of pain is self inflicted....I max out my 401k while my spouse puts away 13%. Yet I constantly feel stretched and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck too much. We have zero kids. I'm reading this forum and seeing people making $150k or so claiming they have $60k in saving for emergencies $700k+ in retirements, and no problems upgrading their house or paying for repairs. Wtf? How is this possible?

If we make this much and feel terrible about finances God help the rest of Americans and their median HHIs below $70k. Basically, no one is saving anything for retirement? I can't imagine needing a $1800 in car repairs and making $70k hhi.

Just drop 401K to just meet the match. You are already putting a ton in even if you just do match as dual income. And what is your mortgage rate? 3 vs. 7 is a huge difference. 540K at 3 perent very affordable your income. 540K at 7 percent is unaffordable.

[Anonymous]

Ha ha! We are wealthy at a much lower HHI. I have always made my money work for me, so if you feel poor and cannot build wealth with HHI of $230K then you are an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People lose perspective. You are some of the richest people in the world. Complaining that you just can’t possibly live comfortably on hundreds of thousands of dollars is year is so out of touch with reality and how the other 8 billion people in the world live.

People in this thread don't live in the rest of the world. The rest of the world you're sanctimoniously referencing has housing that doesn't start at $500k, food that is a fraction of the price, and overall lifestyles that are far less resource intensive. Is some of that a choice for us? Yes, but within reason, most of it is just how life is here.

[Anonymous]

For DCUMers saying OP should be rich with 230k/year and no kids, that’s just not true. DH and I are also childless for now, but with two cars (Toyota and Subaru), a mortgage (for a condo around 1m), a dog and a cat, contributing to retirement, and occasional trips home to visit our parents, we don’t have much money left over. Sure, we don’t fret about going to the movies or getting takeout, but we don’t live lavishly at all - an international trip maybe once every two years, fine dining only on special occasions, and fancy gifts only on birthdays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I'm a single mom to two college-aged kids, and we live off $110k/mo plus $1200/mo child support, which covers my mortgage.

I don't know how child support works, but if it is tax free, that's massive amounts of income.

My biweekly paycheck making around $150k.afyer tax is only $2478 after maxing 401k contributions, health care, etc. You have huge cash flow due to child support, assuming it is tax free.

That doesn’t make sense. NP here. My salary of $145k with max 401k deductions including 50 plus, works out to $3100 take home every two weeks. Are you deducting too much in taxes so that you get a big refund check?

And $1200 a MONTH is not a big windfall. An extra $14400 a year isn’t substantial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I'm a single mom to two college-aged kids, and we live off $110k/mo plus $1200/mo child support, which covers my mortgage.

I don't know how child support works, but if it is tax free, that's massive amounts of income.

My biweekly paycheck making around $150k.afyer tax is only $2478 after maxing 401k contributions, health care, etc. You have huge cash flow due to child support, assuming it is tax free.

That doesn’t make sense. NP here. My salary of $145k with max 401k deductions including 50 plus, works out to $3100 take home every two weeks. Are you deducting too much in taxes so that you get a big refund check?

And $1200 a MONTH is not a big windfall. An extra $14400 a year isn’t substantial.

NP, but I'm looking at both my 2024 W2 right now and my biweekly pay stub issued today. My W2 for 2024 shows annual wages at $193,310. My latest pay stub (no major changes in salary so far this year) was a net of $3095.

So I'm making more than you, deducting 20% combined for 401K and 457 contributions (which is not maxing out; 20% = $1442 biweekly gets me to more like $40K towards 401K+457 combined vs the combined deferral limit is $47,000, and yet still taking home less on a biweekly basis.

I did receive a tax refund last year of about $6K and will likely get a refund again although I made some adjustments to reduce that. I otherwise can't explain the differential between mine and yours, but surely other deductions need to be considered -- healthcare, state and city taxes, pension, whatever else. I'm not complaining the way OP is because I "count" my retirement contributions into my overall big picture, but there's more than just retirement deductions to consider in the biweekly take home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For DCUMers saying OP should be rich with 230k/year and no kids, that’s just not true. DH and I are also childless for now, but with two cars (Toyota and Subaru), a mortgage (for a condo around 1m), a dog and a cat, contributing to retirement, and occasional trips home to visit our parents, we don’t have much money left over. Sure, we don’t fret about going to the movies or getting takeout, but we don’t live lavishly at all - an international trip maybe once every two years, fine dining only on special occasions, and fancy gifts only on birthdays.

People would say this is lavish.